Adobo sa Buko

Before I cooked the Resto-Style Fried Chicken, this was what I hoped to cooked for that day. I knew the coconut vendor pass by the neighborhood every now and then, and that time I was hoping he'd pass by, but he didn't. The next day, I was still very much interested in cooking this dish (a friend of mine told me she got to taste this once and found it delicious), that I decided to walk to the market (which is right outside the neighborhood) and cook this one for my lunch. This was the second recipe I have tried from the Yummy Magazine September 2010 issue.




Adobo sa Buko
{Serves 4}

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo quarter cut chicken (thigh and leg)
• 5 pandan leaves, washed and knotted
• 1 1/2 cups coconut water
• 1 bulb garlic, smashed
• 1 (2-inch) piece ginger, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• peppercorns to taste
• meat from one coconut, scraped out using a spoon
• salt to taste

Directions:

• Clean chicken well. Lay knotted pandan on the bottom of a nonreactive or stainless steel pot (do not use aluminum or copper pots).
• Add in the rest of the ingredients except for the coconut meat. Boil for three minutes.
• Reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Do not move the chicken around too much so as not to tear the skin.
• Continue cooking the sauce until desired consistency is achieved. Add coconut meat in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Adjust seasoning with salt.

The chicken on the picture on the magazine looked a little brownish, while mine looked pale, and the picture had a thick sauce, while mine was a bit runny. Although the look of the outcome didn't match, I still liked the dish. The flavors of the coconut water and pandan mellowed the strong taste of the vinegar, and the dish tasted like a fusion of chicken tinola and adobo. It was a really good dish and I had a great lunch that day.

*** Jenn ***